


Late summer sun

by keeptheearthbelow



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Contemporary AU, Gen, Reference to Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-06 22:02:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4238151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keeptheearthbelow/pseuds/keeptheearthbelow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’re orange and red cherry tomatoes, and yellow pear tomatoes, and in the yellow bucket they look like fire and make Katniss’s hands glow when she reaches in. Written for Prompts in Panem round 6.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Late summer sun

Peeta slams the car into park at the edge of the lot, where gravel and grass intermingle. At least he doesn’t have to park in mud. His folks’ll be pissed enough that he took the car without telling them where he was going, when they were trying to guilt him into an unscheduled shift in the store. If he brings the car back dirty it’ll only get worse.

He joins the tail end of the little crowd of people wandering into the barn – old folks pulling on work gloves, parents slathering sunscreen on kids, a big group that’s maybe from a church or something. There are a couple loners like him, though he’s probably the only one clocking in high school service hours before the school year even starts. He tries to put on a friendly smile, though it’s probably a grimace.

Up front, a tall lady who goes by the name Seeder climbs up on a hay bale and gives them her usual cheerful welcome to Volunteer Farm. She thanks them for answering a special call for volunteers because the usual people are on vacation or whatever, which always seems to be timed right when bumper crops are ripe. That figures. But he was looking for any excuse to get away.

Peeta stares around while she’s talking. His eyes land on a dark braid hanging down the back of a Panem High t-shirt. Is that really …?

His attention goes back to Seeder, who’s suggesting that anybody who’s up for trying to work till noon pair up and have a friendly competition to see who can harvest the most vegetables. The families and church people all grab each other, and he’s left slightly isolated with –

“Matching shirts! Hey, Katniss, good to see you – are the two of you in school together? If you guys want to be a team for harvest, here you go, you guys will have the yellow buckets, okay?” And buckets are put in their hands before they can say they didn’t come as a team.

Katniss looks over her shoulder to see who was just assigned to her. She doesn’t say anything.

He shuffles. “Katniss. Hi. Uh, I’m planning to stay the whole morning, but we don’t have to team up if you don’t want. But I’m happy to,” he amends.

She shrugs. “’S fine.”

They stare at each other for a second, and then he shrugs in reply and goes to grab a pair of the loaner work gloves. He should be falling all over himself at the idea of being next to Katniss for four hours straight, and there remains every chance that he’s going to make a fool of himself … but he doesn’t really feel like talking, and by the looks of it neither does she, so maybe he can just coast through. And he’s at least been here a couple times before and knows what he’s doing.

Under the late summer sun, Katniss picks squashes and peppers with practiced ease. And once they figure out a system for not getting in each other’s way, with one person on each side of the row, they pick up speed tremendously. They take turns going to empty the buckets and put up their tallies. While he’s waiting for her to come back, he glances around at the other teams and figures that they’re stacking up pretty well.

“Peeta, you’re getting sunburned,” she says from behind him, startling him. He didn’t hear her return, and he wasn’t entirely sure she knew his name. She thumps the empty buckets onto the soil and digs in the cargo pocket of her too-big pants. “Here,” she says, offering a tube of cheap sunscreen.

He thanks her and rubs some into the back of his neck and his ears. He tries to be careful going around his collar. But he sees her eyes drop suddenly to his collarbone and widen.

He pulls the fabric back up to his neck, but it’s too late. And now suddenly he can feel the bruise again, almost like it’s growing every time he breathes, and the split in the skin is stinging under the bandaids.

“What happened?” Katniss asks cautiously.

He swallows. “Funny story.” But then, for once in his life, he can’t think of anything.

After a long, frozen minute, he hands her back the tube of sunscreen.

She turns it over in her hand. “Well. You, uh, you have the same coloring as my little sister. So you’ll probably want to put some more on later.”

“Thanks.” He clears his throat. “She didn’t want to come today?”

Her voice drops. “She might’ve, but … I just wanted to get out of the house.”

“Yeah, I hear you.”

They both bend back to the rows of plants. He was happier not thinking about anything, and now they’ve slowed down, and he starts chucking the squashes into the bucket, irritated at himself. He feels Katniss looking over at him and moves faster.

“Hey,” she says sharply.

“What about it?” he snaps back.

She gives him the stink eye. “I’m not trying to make you talk. Just don’t ruin the food. People want to eat this stuff.”

What the hell is wrong with him? He gets wrapped up in his own shit and forgets that people depend on this farm to get any fresh vegetables. “I know. Sorry.”

But he thinks about her bringing it up, and about Seeder greeting Katniss by name, and then, when they’re switched over to the tomato vines, about the way she smiles and says to herself, “These are gonna be good.” She has always eaten the cafeteria lunches in school – he’s never seen her buy lunch or bring a bag lunch from home. He isn’t going to ask, but … he’s extra careful with the tomatoes. They’re orange and red cherry tomatoes, and yellow pear tomatoes, and in the yellow bucket they look like fire and make Katniss’s hands glow when she reaches in.

He finds himself relaxing into some kind of zen state. The labor is tiring – his back and knees ache and he’s dripping sweat – but he’s outdoors instead of in the store and with Katniss instead of his family and nobody’s trying to make him do anything.

They start chatting a bit, eventually. Classes, other chances to get service hours. Nothing heavy. He figures the heavy stuff is already covered. She hands him the tube of sunscreen before he thinks to ask for it, and then, almost as if she doesn’t realize what she’s doing, she fixes a smear that he left on his earlobe. They exchange an awkward smile and she flexes her fingers and gets back to picking beans.

Seeder rings a cowbell to call them all back at noon. Inside the barn, one of her farmhands is still counting tallies. People shuck off their gloves and drink water. Then the farmhand gets up on the haybale to announce the winners. Third place is a pair from the big service group. Second place is one of the families, which has four people as a team, but whatever. And first place – “With 26 bucketfuls and 413 pounds, the yellow bucket kids from Panem High!”

Katniss kind of smiles and ducks her head at the round of applause. Peeta grabs her hand and hoists their fists into the air, mock champion style, and people give them a cheer.

For some reason he and Katniss walk to their cars together, as if they’re still a team. She slows down by her car and says quietly, “I have a first aid kit. If you’re interested.”

He sits on the bumper and holds his collar aside for her as she gently cleans the welt and replaces the inadequate bandaids with gauze and tape. He doesn’t know why he does this. “I have this stuff ‘cause my mom’s a nurse,” she mutters, but that isn’t why, and it isn’t because of how much he’s watched her all this time before today, either. He just … feels better next to her.

She fiddles with the contents of the first aid kit, not really putting it away. He doesn’t want to go home. He’s a coward, maybe, but there you have it. And it doesn’t look like she wants to go home either.

“You want to go do something?” he hears himself say.

She looks up. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. Anything.”

She squints in the sun and looks off across the field. “Okay.” Looks back at him and the little smile has returned to her face. “Sounds good.”


End file.
